Album
by sariahbradshaw
Summary: Too late alas, now for the apt quotation About a love that's proved by steady gazing Not at each other but in the same direction.- S. Heaney, Album. CS Season 7 AU.


Too late alas, now for the apt quotation

About a love that's proved by steady gazing

Not at each other but in the same direction.- Album.

Officer Rogers dreams of a woman with blonde hair.

Or maybe blonde isn't specific enough. It's gold, with straight, faint lines of white and copper and gentle waves of sable and silver.

He's walking up to a storm-blue house, their house he knows. She's facing away from him as he approaches, swinging slowly in the white bench-swing on the porch while staring out at the sea.

He dreams of having a fucking porch.

 _She's not facing him but he can tell from the shadow of her profile that her belly is swollen, carrying life safe inside her. He knows, inexplicably, it is his child._

 _He approaches her, senses her worry in the limp drag of her feet against the wood, the way she has yet to turn to greet him even as his weight causes the creaky third stair to sound._

" _My love," He sits by her, knows there is a freckle in the joint of her right knee, and could swear he loves her boundlessly bottomless even without recalling her name "What is the matter?"_

" _Nothing." There is no wetness in her voice, but a muted sense of melancholy that makes a lump lodge in his breastbone. He comes out behind her, slowly, placing one hand on her shoulder and looking out at the water with her._

" _Darling, I doubt that is entirely true."- -If he could just see her face, hidden bye the wind whirling a shield of flaxen locksby the wind, he is sure he would have her name. Remember her person, as close to his own as the way their rings click quietly against each other when she reaches up to rest her hand on his._

 _Her other hand rubs absently over her belly. Her voice is soft, but he is so attuned to it that his ears pick it up before the breeze can snatch it away. "Do you think she'll have magic?"_

 _Rogers doesn't understand this question, but it makes sense in his dream. The worry and the sorrow and the curiosity in her voice. He leans closer to her, lets her rest her head back more on his stomach than the hard bench back. He's almost angry at himself. If he just looked down he would see her-paint the colour of her eyes and the slope of her nose and…_

" _I'm not sure love. I don't suppose we've broken any curses together, all other adventures aside."_

 _Her head turns slightly to nuzzle into his lower belly, warm and soft even through his shirt. He can hear her faint, wondering chuckle. "You know what, I suppose we never did. What do you think Captain, did Zeus make a mistake? Is your True Love really some hot bartender someone in Boston missing the time of their life?"_

 _He chuckles back at her teasing question, the sound warm in his throat as it flows in the air, puffing in little white gusts. He moves his hand, drawing it through her wind-gnarled strands and having the vague thought to get her inside before the air chills further. Rogers bends down so his mouth is aligned with her ear, making her shiver as he breathes warm, moist air and wet against her flesh. He can make out the perfect curl of her ear then, the delicate, swan-like slope of her neck._

 _Just a little more, just a little more and he's sure he would find something, that elusive, tantalising thing if he could just see her face._

 _Rogers kisses a secret spot under her ear. "I don't know, my love, but you know, I don't think I give a damn. Whoever else is out there must suffer the lack of my presence, for you are the one I chose to be with."_

 _He kisses her again just as gently, laying one hand on the protruding stomach. "And as for her, I'm not sure either love. Whatever happens though, I know we will tackle it together."_

" _I love you." She sighs._

And then in one dream, she turns her head green eyes meeting his and-Emma.

 _Emma Swan._

That is the first thing Officer Rogers thinks when he wakes up from the curse on Hyperion Heights and remembers that he is not, in fact, Officer Rogers.

Emma Swan, are the first two words Killian Jones remembers when the curse breaks.

His wife, his partner, his life-

And then, standing in front of him with tears in her eyes and horror on her face-

Lucy Mills. His granddaughter.

The curse breaks.

Henry Mills, who know remembers he is indeed, Henry Mills, son of the Evil Queen-Roni-Regina, and Emma Swan, Saviour Extraordinaire. Son of Neal Cassidy, grandson of the Dark One. Husband of Ella Mills-Jacinda, the woman he's been pining for. Father to-Father to-

Father to Lucy Mills, the little girl who nearly had her heart ripped out by one Wicked Witch Gothel. The little girl who is currently still lying on the pavement, breathe heaving in her little chest from her enduring fear. after nearly having her goddamn heart ripped out.

-Son of Killian Jones-Captain Hook-Officer Rogers-

The man currently, obviously, feeling the same curse-hangover headache (how his mother and grandparents went all with all those curses, he has no clue. Tthis fucking bites. It's a hangover on steroids. a million, all All the real memories and fake memories colliding and colluding in his head)

But those ridiculously blue eyes blink twice and Henry watches as Officer Rogers, his friend, becomes the man who raised him (the man who taught him how to sail, who told him stories of Neal Cassidy on a leaking rowboat and taught him to navigate with the stars. The man who taught him how to fleece his own grandfather at dice with french fries at Granny's. The man whose ears turned pink while he flushed red down to his toes and asked for dating advice. The man who cried when Lucy, his Lucy, was handed to him, pink and wailing and new to the world in a little blue blanket and immediately used her tiny fingers to grasp his hook and stop her shrieking, content with her prize.)

There's a moment, a flicker when that is who he is. And then it passes and Gothel is still clinging to a wall of a shop in the middle of the fucking street in Seattle but his gaze turns to her and his jaw clenches and-

He's heard stories of course, Henry has read the book back to front and knows what his father once was. Knows the rage he once had. But he has never, ever seen Captain Hook in real life, the pure fury and ire in his gaze when he stares down the witch. The witch who tried to kill Hook's granddaughter, the woman who-

The woman who helped enact a curse that left his sister Alice-Tilly- _-A_ -a homeless orphan.

 _Shit_ , Henry thinks, pausing to make sure Ella is okay with a quick squeeze to her forearm and receiving one in return as she struggles off the ground (Curses fucking hurt when they break, all light and magic in the middle of Hyperion Heights, pushing them back and down.) before he strides (runs) to collect his daughter.

She's crying, and shaking and dusty from the crappy pavement in a bad part of town but fine, as he collects her into his arms. He takes one look at Hook though and thinks, _shit._

He's going to kill Gothelher. There's bloodlust in his eyes, absolute in their desire to end things. _Shit_ , he thinks. How did Gold think he was going to evade this man all those years ago, because Henry has never seen him like this. Not when he showed up late for curfew. Not when he swore at Emma that one time. Not when Emma grabbed a dagger and descended into darkness.

This is Captain Hook, and he hates.

But then Lucy is grabbing at his shirt with tiny, shaking fists and sobbing into him and-shit,

He doesn't care.

Let him burn the witch.

Hook turns his head slightly, focusing on Henry as he gathers Lucy up, waiting, Henry realizes, for confirmation or him to tell her that they are alright.

Henry nods, raising his daughter closer to his chest even as he kneels to the ground, half focused on his grumbling wife and half focused on his enraged father.

And then it's Killian, whose face softens for a fraction of a second as he nods back to them, mumbling out an address close to them (Rogers' apartment, he realizes) and then he is gone and he takes three steps towards Gothel and it doesn't matter that he has a prosthetic instead of a hook, he has a gun and-

It's at her throat when he hisses, "Where is my _wife?_ "

 _Shit,_ Henry thinks.

He doesn't kill Gothel, in the end, but Henry is rather sure it's more because a fully restored Regina Mills appears in a cloud of smoke than any true conviction not to kill on the pirate's behalf.

"Hook," She's wielding magic again and she's standing with her shoulders straight back, but her tone is less regal and more the no-nonsense sort of pragmatism that always compelled people to follow Roni.

Henry blinks. He _hates_ memory curses.

There's yelling. He's dimly aware of it because he's got a hysterical daughter on his knee as they make his way to his wife, whose getting off the ground much too slowly and-

"-is out there living in a storage facility and gods knows where Emma-"

"-is alright, you just saw her yesterday and we both know how hard it is to kill your wife. Lucy is-"

"-she was helping the bloody Crocodile for fucks sake. Who knows what trouble-"

"-they'll have woken up too and she knows where you live. Let's take Henry and-"

"-Emma doesn't-"

"-Emma would kill you for abandoning our son and granddaughter right now and we both know it."

They end up in Officer Roger's apartment.

"Tequila?" She asks with a wave of her hand, summoning a bottle and a set of glasses. "I don't do rum."

He hates this apartment. It may be spacious and neat, but it is barren. There were no photos on the tastefully peeling off-white walls. A single pot, pan, and coffee maker on the fake-granite counters. He has a bookcase in the corner filled with texts on interviewing techniques and leather-bound journals on old police reports. It is the abode of a man without a home, a resting place, an anchor to the world. It is too like the years he spent before, before Emma-adrift and yearning and he hates every second he remains here.

There's a lamp by a single oversized, stiff, off-colour orange chair that he remembers buying from Goodwill, used it for reading the journal-Eloise's journal- _Alice's_ journal…

His heart lurches, his soul vibrating and keening to find his other half, his other parts-

"Hook," Regina-Roni-calls again, waving the glass at him. "Take a drink. They'll be fine."

There's one awkward second between them, because Killian Jones had never warmed to Regina Mills.

Always minimally courteous for Henry's sake of course, but never forgiven. He could never forgive the woman for making his wife grow up believing she was an orphan. - His wife, who he really, really wanted to locate or to have her find him or just be here, together. - He couldn't forgive Regina for almost killing his son, _their_ son just to win a fight against his wife. He couldn't forgive the way she never, not in all their years in Storybrooke, totally warmed to Emma.

(He was also a touch jealous of Henry's affections for her, but that surely had nothing to do with it.)

But Roni? Roni, even Killian liked her with his old memories. Roni had been fierce, outgoing, sly and drank him under the goddamn table. She was protective of Henry and a center of cynicism and well, they had been friends.

He's not sure who just walked through his door.

She waves the tequila once again and he's pretty sure who he is so he tries not to growl as he paces around this place of emptiness, frantic with worry and fear, head splitting. "Regina-"

"Roni, if you please." She corrects, pouring two glasses and taking one back for herself.

"Roni then," Killian concedes. "Now that Henry and his family are all safely sequestered in this apartment and you've done...wherever the hell you poofed Gothel to, I need to go find the rest of my family. I don't bloody know where Emma is but I do know where my daughter is and she needs me-"

"Your daughter," Roni says with single lifted eyebrow. "Is one of the most resourceful, stubborn young women I have ever encountered. Plus, while you are out trapezing the streets, she's more likely to show up here. You know I'm right."

He shakes with fury, with intent, with energy to go after them but some part of him know that the moment Alice wakes up she will head straight here, surely. Surely she must be-

"Jones," Her voice snaps him out of her thoughts. He doesn't think the Queen has ever said his name before. She sighs heavily. "You head has to be killing you from the false memories. The liquor will dull the edge of it. Trust me, not my first post-curse rodeo. I know you miss them, but right now our granddaughter is in pieces in your spare bedroom and her parents are outside in your hallway, yelling at each other."

Even as she says it, he can hear the muted argument of Henry and Ella in one direction, tiny, muffled sobs from the other.

She pushes the tequila towards him with a finger. "Take a shot so you can think straight and let's go say hello to Lucy. It's not like you can leave her anyways."

Roni snorts at him and even as his head does indeed pound and his soul feel the tug to find-to have his lasses, beside him he remembers:

 _("Congrats Killian, you're officially an old grandpa." She had teased, leaning into him as he held, Lucy, watching her scrunched little face wind and unwind as if to decide if she was alright with his presence._

 _It's only Emma's presence, solid and warm beside him that keeps him standing, his whole being effuse with love and lightness as the babe relents back to sleep in his arm, tiny and trusting and-_

 _Emma chuckles next to his ear, but he can feel the wet press of her own cheek against the side of his neck. "God, she's already got you wrapped around her little finger doesn't she Grandpa?"_

 _He gives a tear-soaked laugh, not taking his eyes off the tiny person in his arms even as he presses a kiss to his wife's hair. "I know better than to try and argue with my lasses, Swan.")_

And she's right about the sensation of having two lives in his head. The last time he felt like this he had smoked a pound of snapweed in Neverland and woke up three days later without his clothes next to an equally naked Smee and no idea how it occured, only threatening the man into total secrecy.

But then he hears the low, cooing cries of his granddaughter again and he plants his feet, bending his knees and breathing in deep, in-and-out, to steady himself.

He takes the shot and knocks on the spare bedroom door. "Little lass.."

Time becomes a stranger again, the slow, endless drag of Neverland pierced by instant, painful shards of 200 years of memories until he reflects that only mere seconds have passed.

Lucy's calmer, sitting in his lap the way she had done when younger and he was watching her in Storybrooke, telling her the same stories about stars and ships he had told her father.

 _Lucy who had her father's eyes, her grandfather's eyes, (the one she never met, will never meet), his Milah's eyes: all dark and round and nearly glowing when happy but misty and bottomless when sad. And if he's not too mistaken, (and he's not, he's memorized it in all of its facets) that she has Emma's smile with the little dimples._

 _Emma and her smile, the little turn of her cheek, the way the pillow pressed creases in her cheek when she woke and-_

He blinks against another spike of memories, thinking that he should switch off with Roni for another shot.

How in gods name did people function with multiple fake lives crammed into their heads?

"Grandpa Killy? Her little voice calls him back, tiny hands warm on his chest.

He smiles down at her, trying to remain calm and soothing even as his chest aches in anxiety. "Sorry little lass. What was that?"

She forgives him for his indiscretion with the absolute absolvement of young children. "I said do you think Mom and Dad will stop fighting? They were yelling at each other earlier.

He's tempted to correct her because it was much more likely Ella was yelling while Henry was whispering harshly, but instead he pat her head. "Of course darling. They have much to discuss but they love each other as much as they love you darling. They'll find their way."

"Pretty good advice, Grandpa."

He can't seem to move, his bones locking up in his legs as his face won't turn, terrified if he stops counting the freckles on her nose she will somehow vanish and he'll go back to that terrible gulf of existence he had as Rogers. He needs to memorize the exact shade of green of her eyes, the lines of her forearms. He needs to commit the little dimple in her chin into his spirit and that half-smirking twist of her lips somewhere lower, somewhere deeper.

Simply, he sees and needs Emma.

Lucy has no qualms, wriggling out of his grip to run to her grandmother, wrapping her arms around her waist until Emma bends to embrace her shoulders.

"Hey kid. Goodness, you've gotten taller. It's so good to see you. Now, I hear my son is misbehaving so why don't you run out there and remind him he's not too old for me to ground him?" His wedding ring glints on her finger as she hugs the girl, making his heart squeeze in agony and longing and if he could just get off the floor, just reach out and touch her to know she's alive…

As Lucy runs out, she nearly smacks into a second figure and the fingers that steady her, the voice that calls out, "Well there, Da. Look who I found on my way over here?

That voice stops his breath, his gaze finally leaving his wife's, still crouched down and brow pulled low as she watches him.

"Well Da, finally showing your age then? Can't get your knees off the floor?"

"Alice-" Killian absolutely croaks, his throat tight and he reaches a hand out, groping at the image of his daughter, his wife, right there in front of him but she's right he can't move. He makes a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sob and then he doesn't have to move because Emma is right there, lifting his head to rest on her neck.

"Killian, hey." Her voice is soft and low, sofamiliar thathe wants to bottle it and never be apart from it again. Never be apart from _her_ again.

Her green eyes flit across his features and whatever she sees makes her simply pull her arms tighter around him, solid and real until his cheek is resting in the crook of her shoulder and his heated little pants of despair, relief and love are painting on her skin.

"Killian, I'm here." She whispers it into his ear, too low for their daughter to hear but so perfectly echoing deep in the bottoms of his belly. "It's okay, babe. It's okay."

He tries to nod against her and it's only then that he realizes he's shaking even as his gaze turns wildly for their daughter.

"Alice," He begs again, struggling to move even as Emma is wrapping her arms around his side, supporting him.

It's Swan's hair, his eyes and his mother's could he have seen her, _spoke_ to her, without realizing. How could he hear his own lilt in her cadence and not have his blood reach to simply recognize its own. He must still be reaching out pathetically because he hears a falsely dramatic sigh and then his daughter, his beautiful, darling duckling is on his other side, sliding in parallel to her mother. "Da, stop it. You've seen me, you know I was fine. Kiss mom on the cheek or something. She's the one who hasn't seen you in like six months."

Killian has an arm around a shoulder of each of his lasses and for the first time since the curse hit, he feels whole. It's warmth settling deep and soundlessly as a blanket over his aching wounds and frantic searches, that deep, deep sense of failure and everything wrong Officer Rogers was. He does manage to laugh at Alice then, even as he presses his cheek to the top of Swan's head so she can't see the tears he feels slipping down.

"Aye lass, you're right by that. As resourceful as your mother. I'll be sure to give your mother a proper welcome home when prying eyes have gone away, but for now I'll be content to hold you both."

Alice snorts and mutters 'sap' into where he's molded her to his collarbone but he knows Swan feels his tears because she tightens her hands, simply squeezing him in gentle reassurance.

 _I am here. She is here. We are safe._

Hey Da," Alice-Tilly-Alice, greets him in a surprisingly soft echo, her knees curled under her (so like her mother) as she sits on the spare bed in Rogers' apartment.

She looks small, in the whitewashed room of pale walls, pale sheets, fake wood, and a spare, dented nightstand.

The Mills clan had departed not long ago, and not until Swan had her fill of ruffling Lucy's hair, holding her son and chastising him for _'another curse, really kid._ ' But Roni had followed them out as the young family trudged back to Jacinda's home, ready to collect her roommate, gather their belongings, and head back to the old loft they had inhabited whenever they visited from the Enchanted Forest.

Killian had not released either of his lasses for a good long while, even as his knees creaked and ached . In a surprising show of patience, Alice hadn't protested until Emma pulled the three of them up, setting about saying goodbyes, seeing to everyone's welfare, and making cocoa. Until the clear film of exhaustion covered her eyes and Killian begged his caring, beautiful wife to finally go to bed.

His daughter looks larger than life as she sits in the spare bedroom of an apartment of a man he loathes. Her golden hair illuminated under the halogen lights, her pale colours, his eyes, staring back at him with a faint, fake smile. (She lies as poorly as her mother, even if the smirk she sometimes gives and her ears are all him.)

"Hello duckling," Killian whispers, stopping with foot mid-raised on his way to the bedroom he now shares with Emma, his wife. "How are you this fine evening?"

Alice snorts and that's all he needs to chuck his chin, asking her permission to join her on the tiny bed and receiving a Swan-patented eye roll and nod in response.

He enters, ducking slightly (What the hell was Rogers thinking when he purchased this apartment?) under the frame and frowning at the peeling paint, gray and worn. His daughter deserves better. (She deserves her bedroom back in Storybrooke, one terribly and self-painted closet of red, rabbit wallpaper that stuck with her since birth, the ceiling painted masterfully of constellations and Seamus Heaney quotes on the walls.)

"It's okay, Da. How is mommy?" Alice hasn't called Emma mommy in years and it makes his chest ache, the slight neediness in her tone that comes from being cursed and away from them and homeless to boot for six bloody months. Six months of strange pills and life on the street and-

"Asleep, I believe," Killian settles next to her on the tiny bed, giving her space while still offering his shoulder should she desire it. "She's got at least double the false memories in her head, and it must be killing her. In the morning, we'll work out how to get _home._ "

The word catches in his throat, his longing for their blue-porch existence, the world where Alice had never known want and Emma had finally known safety, his harbour, his ship, so strong that it nearly chokes him.

Alice nods slowly, in a way that betrays her hesitance just as it did when she was ten years younger, claiming her favorite stuffed bunny was responsible for paint on the walls. "I know. She wants to leave."

"You don't?" It's out of his tongue before he can call it back, fear and reluctance and everything else clear in his voice. He doesn't want his daughter here any moment longer, here where she had been living in a-

Alice shrugs and must see something in his eyes because she leans into him in a way that she hasn't tolerated in the past year, her head finding its nest in the crook of his neck and shoulder and he could weep for the memory, the tactile sensation of his child safe and beside him.

"It's not that I don't want to go back to Storybrooke, it's just…" He feels her shrug against him, the angle her bony shoulder digging into his.

 _("Emma," His voice is soft in the hospital as he leans over to his wife, his wife who gave birth just hours ago and has been wheeled into the PICU by a kindly old nurse. His wife, who is nearly in tears._

" _Emma love, go back and rest. You're not well-"_

" _The nurses said I can't pass it to her. It's just crap from, you know, giving birth."_

 _He winces because even the memory of his daughter's birth scares him white. The blood and the fear in Emma's eyes when she awoke him half-way through the night with a sob. The way Whale's mouth had set a hard line when he explained the complications and how he might have to choose between daughter and wife. The way she had screamed-_

 _Emma reaches for his hand, her grip weak but firm as they stare through the glass to look at their daughter. "She's small. We knew she was going to be small, but the nurse told me she is strong. She's going to make it, Killian."_

 _There is moisture gathering under her fair eyelashes even as she says it, trying to give him strength even as she's terrified, hurt and nearly died._

 _He swallows. "Of course she will. Any child of ours will be stubborn and strong, just like her mother."_

 _She tries to laugh but it comes out weak so he bends down to kiss her forehead as they watch the angry, pale little being scream silently against the breathing tube forced into her neck. He kisses his wife until he feels the dampness on his own face and then he simply gets to his knees, enfolding whatever he can gently and murmuring soft, slow things to calm his beautiful, lovely wife. His Swan.)_

. "...Robyn and I broke up here."

Ah. That explains it then.

Killian must make some sound in his throat because Alice is butting her chin into his, scowling in a way he knows is all him.

"Don't laugh. We were...well, we were dating before the curse and then we were dating again and it should be fine but…"

She shuffles in the bed, the bones next to his (his bones, her bones) shift and tangling in discomfort until she gives an exaggerated sigh.

 _("I think she inherited your flair for the dramatic." Swan says, holding the screaming infant by her breast. "She thinks the world is coming to an end and really she just needs to shut up and latch onto a goddamn-"_

" _Language, love." He pretends to admonish with a chuckle, turning serious when he sees the dark circles under Emma's eyes. "Let me have a go. Maybe the little pirate just needs some shanties."_

" _You think you know what to do better than me?" The words are sharp and Killian has to gather his patience, shutting his eyes and remembering Whale's words about 'trauma' and 'postpartum' and 'hormones' until he opens them and moves closer to his wife and daughter, slowly._

" _Not at all Swan. I just think mum deserves some rest. You've been testing her, haven't you, duckling?" When Emma doesn't react, he takes Alice from her with care, transferring the delicate weight to his stump so his hand can make soothing motions against her agitated face. "Come, scream at Da some more. Let Mum have a bed, aye?"_

 _He glances back at his wife as his daughter continues to wail only to see unshed tears in her eyes. Bloody hell, he meant that mostly as a joke. "Emma, I only meant-"_

" _I know," She cuts him off, furiously swiping at her face. "Fuck, I know Killian. I'm just. I'm tired. And crazy. And you look cute with her, okay?"_

 _He laughs under his breath, kissing her temple as he starts humming, rocking his child. "I believe you darling. Go back to bed. I'll wake you if we decide to settle down enough to eat."_

 _She nods but those peridot eyes are still swimming and her throat bobs. "I love you, you know that?"_

 _His soul rises, hearing that. "Of course Swan. I love you too. You and the duckling and the lad.")_

"DA!" He

He blinks. "Sorry love, this bloody curse has me all discombobulated is wrong with Robyn again?"

Alice gives him such a stare, he aches for his wife.

"I said we kissed. Like, a lot. And the curse didn't break. So we aren't...you know, True Love or whatever. I don't know what that means at this point."

Killian suddenly remembers a time when he pushed open a well-sought after door in the despicable New York City. The despair he felt coupled with a well-aimed knee to his…

Well, Alice was lucky to have existed after that.

He clears his throat. "Darling, first of all I would like to inform you that True Love's Kiss doesn't work if one or both parties have their memories impaired.

"But Grandpa and Nanny-"

"Are a weird, strange case." He says firmly. "In a lot of ways. And even if that wasn't so, does it truly matter that you and Robyn don't share True Love's Kiss?"

Alice removes her head off his shoulder to raise a single, distinct eyebrow of incredulity.

He is wordlessly thankful to meet that look again. "What the bloody hell do you think it means? Everyone else in our family has their 'T'rue Love and I just told you Robyn isn't mine. Why wouldn't that matter?"

"I think perhaps it might mean your lives are less set up for magical malfeasance. Do you know how many times your grandparents have been cursed?

Killian is, apparently, less funny than he thought if the sharp blue eyes of Alice have a thought about it. She sighs, flashing her pale fingers forward.

"Aunt Belle and Gold. Regina and Henry. Nanny and Grandpa. You and mom. Even Robyn's mom and the lord of the Underworld shared that. It _means_ something."

"Alice," He breathes out slowly, trying to pick through his mind for the words she needs to hear. "It's simply...all that is, is magic. It's not...affection or care. Besides, you got one off. Your mother and I have been through quite a lot together but certainly not True Love's Kiss. Even a wanker like myself would remember that."

She leans back, tilting her head toward him to catch his gaze. "Yes, you do. Robyn's mom told me about it. Mom saved you from Zelena's curse."

It's such a truly, ridiculous unfactual retelling of the tale that it takes Killian several moments of searching his recently restored memories to see if he had indeed, somehow forgotten, such an event until he realizes what his daughter is referring to.

If he were a different man, he would sputter. As it is, he merely sort of jerks his spine going from loose and warm to sharp in an instant, boring a hole into her little blonde haid while she sat seemingly unconcerned. "Saved from Zelena's...Duckling, are you referring to incident in which Zelena cursed me to steal your mother's magic and coerced her to touch my lips by nearly drowning me. Forcing your mother to perform...CPR?"

Alice shrugged nonchalantly. "Lips were touched. A curse was broken, and besides, Robyn's mom said that you to were 'already so disgustingly in love that any sort of lip-contact was bound to be a kiss."

Killian makes a mental note to have a few strong words with the witch when they all return to Storybrooke about exactly what sort of information is being passed on to his daughter. However, in the moment, he only makes a faint noise of disagreement. "While that may be a point of debate darling, I still don't see-"

"And even if it is," She counters, wrapping her bony arms around her legs. "You totally passed the test in the Underworld and than a god sent you back, Da. It's kinda hard to argue with that. You two are obviously True Love."

He debates waking his wife for a moment but he can't disturb her rest, not all these long years later. "Henry and Ella never had a magical-creating kiss."

"Who were the only two people fighting today?"

"Duckling," He feels the sad tilt of her head as a stone in his belly. "Why do you feel it matters?"

She shrugs, her chin on her bent knees. "Well, if Robyn isn't my true love doesn't that mean there is someone else who I am supposed to be with, who she is? But I don't think I want anyone else? I mean-is that selfish, to take both of us away from the people we are destined to be with?"

He's suddenly reminded of another conversation, nearly sixteen years ago, on their beautiful porch, staring at the sea. And he suddenly knows what to say.

"You know, your mother once asked me a similar question."

That gets Alice to lift her head, brow furrowing. "Mom wasn't sure you were in love with her because I've read the Storybook and-"

"No," He chuckles, barely resisting the urge to reach out and ruffle her hair. "No. She wasn't sure if we were, as you put it, capital 'True love. Do you know what I told her?"

"That she was being stupid?"

"Not sure I'd be around if that had been my answer, love." He chuckles fondly, earning a snort that made even his toes warm before he turned serious again. "I told her that I didn't particularly care," He shrugs. "I still don't."

Her golden brow furrows. "How can you not-"

"Because I love your mother, Alice." He cuts her off gently, firmly. "True Love is the most powerful _magic_ of all. It doesn't determine the depth or the quality or the ability of the way you feel about each other, it is simply magic. Something Gold once bottled for his own power. Something that once helped curse your grandparents. It's nothing more than that."

He's gotten her attention, her shoulders are back against the bed she's sixteen and sceptical and so Killian thinks back through the long years of newly restored memories until he thinks he found the right one. "You know about Milah, correct?"

"Henry's grandmother? Yes." She says slowly, rolling her back.

Killian stares at his daughter, nodding slowly and treading cautiously. "They were very different woman, your mother and Milah. Falling in love with-"

 _Falling in love with Emma Swan was less like falling and more like navigation, following the moon and its tides._

 _(Despite how her mother tells the story, he hasn't loved her from the moment she threatened to leave him for the ogres.)_

 _It's the climb upto the beanstalk that starts it. This woman with walls to the sky and lonely eyes and-_

" _Maybe I was in love, once."_

 _She understands him, he knows the moment she spies Milah's tattoo. This woman is a kindred spirit, he can join her and-_

" _I can't trust that I'm wrong about you."_

 _He just doesn't get it._

 _He stalks around Storybrooke, always watching the Crocodile and waiting. Always, except when he is watching Emma Swan._

 _She is brash and closed. Taking on burdens herself despite those around to help her. She is fierce and lonely._

 _He watches as she steps away from the gentle embraces of her parents, as she stands in front of her son like a wounded cat. He watches late nights at the station as she keeps working, keeps trying despite the seemingly endless problems Cora is creating for her._

 _He doesn't want to care. Tries to hate her. (He fails, on both counts.) It's just that-_

" _An orphan's an orphan."_

 _She is so much like himself, that Swan girl, and yet she left him atop the bloody beanstalk. She thwarts his every attempt at revenge. She sits on his hospital bed and berates him._

" _Belle was innocent."_

 _She should understand and accept him and she doesn't, and that, that truly gets under his skin. People like them need to stick together. (He just wants her to tell him he's doing just fine.)_

" _Or you could join something."_

 _He tries to run but he thinks of sad green eyes and the way he felt whenever his father left and how she won't, can't, abandon her boy and… (He wants her bloody approval, is what it is, fool that he is.)_

 _He turns around._

 _Falling in love with Emma was like making a Mistress out of the moon. She's guiding and light, guiding and yet unforgiving._

 _But loving Emma, loving Emma was:_

 _Years of trying and failing for a child of their own blood, cradling her in the night when it all became too much._

 _It was her, taunting him in the kitchen when they were half-awake and clothes weren't needed and there was work and responsibility but the smell of her was too much to resist._

 _It was the day he nearly got shot by a wayward Lost Boy and she was crying and screaming at him and he enfolded her into his good side in a hospital bed and assured her that he was alright._

 _It was drinking too much rum and taking on a dare with Ruby that ended up in the three of them breaking into the Storybrooke library with David standing over them with an indignant glare and one pair of handcuffs._

 _It was becoming Gideon's godparents, and giving Belle their spare room when she ended her marriage for good, taking turns with Gideon when she was too sad, putting the two of them back together._

 _It was trading turns with Alice and hiring other deputies so they could make sure their little one was well before going back out into the world, dark circles and stupid smiles on their faces._

 _It was Killian waking her in the middle of the night with his mouth between her thighs, thirsty and wet and consuming until-until-_

 _And her pushing him on his back in the morning and taking him inside her, willing and hot and waking up from the best of dreams to a better reality, a beautiful smirk on his wife's face._

 _It was family dinner's at the Nolan's and the way she shrieked and ran across the yard when Henry returned, grinning like a twat with a shier Ella in tow._

 _It was Ella, getting drunk at one of those dinners and challenging him to singing competition of 'Revenge is Going to be Mine' on Mary Margaret's pristine table._

 _It was Emma waking up to find him sitting on their porch, awaiting the sunrise with a cup of cocoa waiting for her and a sly little grin as he looped his arms around her, enjoying the light rise above the horizon._

 _It was watching their daughter crawl, then walk and talk and understanding that every moment up to then, every dark deed every misstep, had been to this._

 _It was life._

 _Falling for Milah had been akin to the sea: tiny, minute waves inching laps at his toes until he was surrounded and in too deep._

 _It was her hair that first caught his eye: waves of auburn with hints of red in them, swirling like a creek. (The one he and Liam used to go to, playing for a time before he had to get back to work or felch dinner for them or tend to their mother. All climbing rocks and cool, clean water.) It was her hair and then it was her clothes, ragged and patched up in a way that reminded him of his younger self, wearing shoes a size too small while market vendors screamed at him to_ 'get away you thieving vermin. We don't take beggars here. _' (And then there was Liam again, dragging him away from the stall before he got his damned hand cut off for being hungry, giving him a loaf, an orange and telling him to_ 'be careful, Killy.' _)_

 _So it's her hair, her clothes and the absolute longing, sad acceptance in her large brown eyes as she sipped ale alone for all the world as if she expected her lot in life. (He saw those eyes in the mirror before Liam, before the navy, before-before-before.)_

 _It's her hair, her clothes, then her low eyes as she drank totally alone-and then it's another man. One rude and forward and-_

 _-And for one moment, he wants Liam to be proud of him again. To be the man he wanted him to be._

 _He doesn't regret turning pirate, but sometimes he misses Lieutenant Jones, whom his brother wheedled, bedeviled and never stopped speaking of: so proud. So proud of his ethics, his chivalrousness, of his tactical mind and commitment to orderliness._

 _He likes his freedom, he won't lie. (He's never been free before in his life so it's more intoxicating than the rum, the liquor and the women.) But the moment the brute at the bar puts a hand on Milah, a long-forgotten instinct rears up in him to protect her._

 _A little part of the man Liam raised him to be._

 _So it isn't so much as Milah herself as everything she represents, everything he once was, that makes him punch the bugger in the face._

 _But it is her eyes, the way they light way in the back, a lantern cast in a foggy night, the moment he talks of adventure and freedom and Agruba-that makes him want her._

 _And when she turns him down because she has a child (he thinks of his father, abandoning them in the night for a ship) he knows he will remember this woman, this Milah: her imploring desire for adventure and duty to a son and ragamuffin clothes, for all of his days._

 _(It's three months and several meetings when she finally comes to him, her wrist red with burns, and begs him to take her away._

 _He does._

 _He tries not to think of her boy. He tries.)_

 _It's not even then that he loves her. He liked the feeling saving her, rescuing her, gave him. It's months at sea, watching her bloom under his touch and his regard to her freedom. Watching the dim golden light behind her shuttered eyes brighten until it shone like a beacon while she brandished a cutlass and hollered, red-faced and filled with life into the fray._

 _He first knows he loves her the night she's bloodied from the latest victory, adrenaline thrumming through her veins and eyes glorious as the night._

 _So he loved Milah and he loves Emma and he loves-_

"It was a choice you see, that we made about our love for each other. We choose to build a life together and that is what made our love strong. It wasn't staring like gooey-eyed children at each other, but rather about standing side-by-side and facing the future together." He's pretty sure he got lost in his tale, but he leans down to smile tenderly at his daughter and chuckles.

"You know, over all the adventures and mischief your mother and I went through together, you were most certainly the most challenging."

Alice blinks at him, her nose scrunching in offense. "Me? How am I more difficult than ogres? Or giants? Or-"

He raises one hand in an old, Captain-esque move for silence. " You know how long it took you for finally grace us with your presence? Then, you inherited your mother's patience and came months early, scaring the living daylights out of us. And then you put every gray hair in your mother's hair with a sheer refusal to eat or sleep or generally behave. And once you decided you might put us into an early grave and behave, you fall off that horse and I actually think your Grandfather cried that day. And then there was the family of rabbits you adopted without telling us until Granny's garden had been completely devoured. There were the boys, and the girls-though I suppose we do like Robyn a lot more than Helena, to be honest." He rattles off offense with an impossible fondness in his tone, tenderness glowing from his eyes as he watches her. "You, my love, have been our greatest challenge and our greatest reward. And you were the thing we choose to create and the life we wanted. That, my duckling, seems stronger than any magic I have ever encountered in my long, long life."

She's silent for a long time and there's a sheen of wetness in her gaze that makes his heart tug even as she looks away so he won't catch it. But he knows she understands it, understands what he has been trying to tell her through it all, when she swallows and nods.

"You're ancient, Da."

And especially when she deflects, just like her mother.

"Killian," Emma's voice is muffled when he finally enters the master bedroom of Officer Roger's apartment, feeling content with how he left his daughter in the spare bedroom.

He approaches, gently running his fingers through her hair and internally crowing and weeping with delight in the simple pleasure of touch again.

"Come to bed."

And the first time in six months, Killian Jones goes to sleep with all of his family, safe under one roof.

It takes about a week to move back. They have jobs to quit, leases to break and actual friends to say goodbye to.

It's not perfect, it's not happily ever after: there are six months of separate lives to rectify and experiences that have altered them.

Alice's homelessness is an open wound for Killian and Emma can see it eating at her husband. Some nights she can soothe him with gentle touches and soft words. Some nights are hard.

"She wasn't going to school, I can't imagine. I used to catch her fleecing stolen goods during the day. The Croc-the police used her as an informant. _I_ used her as an informant."

He can hear the unleashed fury in his tone rising even as Emma's hand tries to turn his face. "Killian-hey, look at me babe."

"They...something in the curse kept her on drugs or else she would wake up. She was stoned out of her mind half the time. She would...she would ask for these awful sandwiches with jelly on them and I always made she ate something when I saw her but that was once a day at most and I have no idea-"

"Calm down, look she's not-"

"I have no idea what she was eating or if she was other times, or if she was warm enough in that goddamn shed and anyone could have hurt her and gods, she was still beautiful but her clothes were-"

"HOOK!"

"I saw her Emma!" It rises in him like a tide until he wrenches away from her touch, tearing back the bedclothes and half-rising from bed as his words come out between harsh gasps of breath. "I bloody _knew_ her. I played chess and brought her food and used her for information and I never...I never…" As quick as the heat crests, it leaves, opening up nothing in its wake but a crushing, boneless sense of failure and loathing that leaves his throat in a strangled sort of moan.

Emma reaches for him, a light, tentative touch that he finally leans into until she's pulled him down, resting his forehead on her own and he sees that her face is just as crushed as his must be.

Now that he's started though, Killian doesn't think he can stop. The depths of his betrayal seeping out like pus in an open wound. "Why couldn't I see her Emma? Why didn't I know? I...I promised on the day that she was born-"

His wife chokes out a little cry at that, her own beautiful eyes stormy, nearly liquid and he remembers how terrified he had been that he would lose them both. How quickly that turned into elation, pure awe that he had so much love he felt his chest must burst. Or rather grow from it when they placed a screaming little girl, red-faced and squirming into his arms. He remembers how he he was so afraid to hurt this thing that he could hold in one arm, but couldn't bare not to be close to her.

"-I promised her that she would never have a childhood like ours. She would never want for anything. She would never…" His own tears are mingling with hers now, puddling down the pristine whiteness of his wife's cheek in the moonlight. His throat closes as if to resist the terrible, awful word that he swore his daughter needn't ever have- "be _alone._ "

He loses himself against Emma after that, lets her rock both of them, lets her touch and quiet. Content to simply let closeness soothe them both for some time.

Killianseemed hollowed out and so Emma clung to him, keeping her husband close to her as she pondered over the conversation she had with her daughter, wanting him to understand the way she reluctantly had.

"I hate it too," She whispered to him, her lips touching his ear with the words. "And I know we never wanted this for her. But we talked about it and...well, she's okay. She said some nights were rough, they always are, but for the most part her time cursed felt more like an adventure to her. I can remember being her age and the excitement of finishing a job or slipping a wallet. She wouldn't do that here of course but...well, Alice said that she liked finding out that she could do it, live on her own with nothing. Especially when she woke up and realized that...well, she had a lot of everything."

He sighs against her and it's not what she wants, this guilt that's been festering in him since he spotted their daughter in that doorway in Seattle. She loves Killian and all his flaws, but he's a man who cuts into himself deeply, too damn easily, leaving wounds that would linger on him for years to come. Emma's just got him back so she doesn't want those six months to leave more wounds than necessary, not when the past twenty years have lent so much to little cheek kisses and honest smiles.

Emma tries to ease her husband, kissing his neck, gently. "She also said to that 'Papa is probably going to try and do his broody hipster thing, so tell him that he's getting too old for that and that I'm not angry at him, not even a little. I was happy playing chess with Officer Rogers and I am so happy he found me somehow under the curse. Even if he was still moody then'."

Her husband gives a snort of laughter against her hair, making Emma smile, taking the victory in stride. "I think she should at least finish out the semester here, but I was thinking that next one we could send her abroad? I think it might, well, make her seem like she's on an adventure again and keep her from causing mischief here."

"Send her away?" It's the tone he uses when she's arguing the nutritional properties of poptarts or suggests that maybe it's too cold to go sailing.

"For like a year," Emma hurries on. "To a place we could visit. A safe place. It's...well it was something I always wanted to do when I was younger: visit different countries, learn to speak Portuguese or have an affair with a hot French artist or something."

"Ah, revealing unfulfilled sexual fantasies then, are we?" She smacks him for it, but her pulse slows in her chest in relief. If he's making jokes, he feels better, and Emma can sense him turning the idea around in his head.

"You really think it might help duckling?" Emma wonders how much longer her daughter is going to allow that nickname to play, but she's always been soft on her father.

"I do."

"And you? We haven't taken a trip in quite some time, Swan. Should we leave your wayward father and go make our own adventures?"

She huffs into his arm, enjoying the way gooseflesh breaks out down his bicep at the sensation. "No. I think I just want to stay home in my pajamas and not get up till noon for awhile."

His answering chuckle is followed by a kiss to her temple. "Aye, I believe that can be arranged provided Leroy doesn't hear of our return."

Emma gives an obligatory groan and buries her head into his chest, enjoying the feeling of his arms coming around to hold her there, warm, simply existing without confining.

There's a lull and she thinks he might have fallen back to sleep but then she feels a question pressed against her skull. "I love you, you know."

Emma presses a smile against him, mouthing the words back against his flesh. "I love you too."

So there are easy days: when they wake up to Killian making eggs and bacon, Emma and Alice sliding down slowly until she gets ready for school while Emma stares at her coffee.

And it's the same as ever, but under the light of their bay windows, it is everything Emma has ever cherished. Her pirate, barefoot with a spatula in one hand. Kissing her good morning. Following her to the station with his old leather jacket on.

It is Killian, coming home with her to pester their daughter about math while she attempted to make dinner (and only burnt it a bit), listening to the laughter, joy and love in their house.

It is her husband, kissing her after brushing his teeth and whispering _'Good night'_ against her skin warding off nightmares with the warmth of his presence in their bed. Their bed he made love to her, fucked her, held her.

It was them staying up till 2am on a Saturday while Alice goes out with Robyn, exchanging sweet candy-corn kisses over bad movies and even worse TV shows until one of them inevitably drags the other to bed.

There are also hard days.

"What was it like, for you, in Hyperion Heights?"

Emma thinks back to the past six months of her life, safe in her husband's embrace. "It wasn't...bad really. I was good at my job, by the way make fake memories gave me a shit ton of construction factoids so I think I can finally fix that leaky faucet, I had a nice enough apartment. I hadn't been orphaned but my parents and I weren't close. Like, it wasn't weird that we didn't talk or email or visit. I had some plants. God, I somehow managed to keep a plant alive there. It...It wasn't bad I just…"

She snuggles a little deeper into him, wanting his warmth, the slight air drifting in from the window of their bedroom and the feel of their fluffiest down comforter on her shoulders to keep her rooted in there here and now, to not be swallowed up by the memory of: "...There was just this, emptiness in me. I didn't date. I didn't-oh god, we should talk about this, I almost fucked this one guy at a bar but-"

"Swan, Swan it's fine. It's hardly like you could be cheating on someone you couldn't remember."

"But Killian, I couldn't. Like, he kissed me and I thought I was going to literally be sick so I gave him half a blowjob but it was awful and no one came and I just...it's like I kept looking for something I didn't know and not having it made me so…sad not to have it, whatever it was. I haven't felt that way since, Christ, since I was a kid and just wanted…"

Her husband's arms tighten around her, his wrist coming to stroke lightly down her spine and she feels him not and knows that he understands. That it was the same for him, that awful feeling of searching for something elusive but vital as breathing, the hopelessness of trying to reach the stars or hold the moon but needing it so, so badly.

"Family. You haven't felt that way since you let yourself want a family."

Emma snuffles, closing her eyes harshly because there have been enough tears and sorrow for one night all because of another stupid curse and a few lost months and nods against him when she feels her throat relax. "I was looking for you guys. Wasn't I? Did you-"

"Aye, it was the same for me." His wrist slips under her shirt, and suddenly she wants nothing more than skin-to-skin contact. Nothing more than to feel him under him and above her and in her to know that he is here, that everything is alright now. That the awful feeling of total isolation is gone, has been gone for years. "The ache. The loneliness."

Emma pushes back, reaching between them to tug on his shirt in a question, catching the golden flecks in his eyes under the moonlight. "Can we- I want to feel-"

It's been nearly a month and they haven't been intimate yet. Everything too new. Too worried over Alice, over Henry, too folded up in healing and needing to establish the constant intimacy they had over late night cocoas and pancakes at 2 a.m. and...

"Aye," Killian's voice dropped several octaves as he rolled them over, leaning a top of her and sealing his mouth to his, a burning promise.

 _I am here. You aren't alone._

Neither one of them are graceful. Killian is too busy kissing her deep and wide, trying to burrow into her lungs to let her get her shirt off and her fingers fumble with the stretchy band of his sweats without his assistance. She finally manages to slip them down far enough to kick the pants the rest of the way off with her feet, probably bruising his ass in the process, but he merely pulls away long enough to look at her with heat in his gaze and rip her shirt off, nearly snapping her elbow off in his haste. Then he's back, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses across her clavicle and down between her breasts, his hand wandering everyone at once: up her forearm, dancing across her neck, flicking a nipple, rubbing into her belly. There's a frantic need in his fingertips and it makes her arch her back even as her own fingers shake to get her shorts down. His wrist is in the way, heavy and bracketed low on her hips and she struggles to draw enough breath to tell him.

"Killian I nee-fuck, you-your hand. I need to, ah!" She tenses at a sharp nip right below her breast, nearly thrashing with desire as he soothes it. "Fuck, Killian. Pants. I need to get my pants off so we can do this!"

Emma gives him a good shove to try and get her shorts off but her husband is immobile, arm still pinning her bottom as he slows his kisses, ducking his chin to inspect said bottoms with a tilt of his head.

God, his hair looked fucked. She really needed him to stop ogling now. "Killian, just let me take my-aughh shit!"

Before Emma could finish her sentence, he had suddenly sprung to life, wrist lifting her hips and hand darting down to peel the garment off himself. No sooner had it slipped to an ankle then he had buried his head between her thighs, accurately taking her clit in a harsh suck between his lips.

The sudden pleasure was blinding, nearly painful, making her cry out and tilt her hips as he soothed the tiny bud with gentle laps in his mouth. Waiting for her to sink down, breathing harshly before releasing her to drag his tongue up and into her slit, simply lapping at her for a few moments before circling back to her clit and nudging it with his nose, kissing it.

Killian Jones was a man who knew how to go down on a woman. He could edge Emma for hours or send her off in a blink. He had rhythm, technique, ridiculous little tricks, and was quite simply, excellent.

Tonight though, he seemed mad, too drunk to coordinate his movements. He pressed his entire mouth to her, drinking her up, and then he lifted her to penetrate deeper with his tongue. He lashed her clit then soothed it, moving on to another thing, another wild, wicked desire to consume her.

And while much less refined than he typically was, the wantoness of the act, the lack of his typical control, made Emma's thighs shake until she was over the edge with a climax that cramped her stomach and made her nerves burn with heat as her thighs clamped around his head.

It was beautiful, the burning, just on that precipice of pleasure and pain and-

He wasn't stopping.

"Oh, Christ, Killian, no. I can't," She yanked his hair, mentally pleading him to relent on her oversensitive flesh. She wouldn't be able to take another orgasm like that. It would melt the flesh off her. "Please, get up here. Please."

Either her tugging or words reached him because his dark head appeared from between her thighs, his chin absolutely glistening with her and _fuck_ if that didn't turn her on. He rose, a feral thing, bracketing her shoulders and there was nothing more than she wanted right now for him to fuck her but-

Seven months. Seven months is a long time. (The longest since they've been married. Longer, even then before that.)

Emma placed her hand on his chest to stop him and he stilled, something sane returning to his dark expression as she smiled slightly awkwardly. "I mean, I told you about that guy at the bar. The same goes for me. If you...I mean it can't be cheating. I just need….do we need condoms? Because I know it's been awhile but I'm sure we could find some around here somewhere."

He cuts off her babbling with a kiss, this one slow and gentle, a complete contrast to his actions before. He braces himself on his hand and his wrist caresses the slope of her cheek, the tender flesh under her jaw as he shakes his head, much more Killian than Hook now. "No love. I never...the yearning was just too much for me. I couldn't see another lass."

Her sinuses burn at his admission, vulnerable and tender, so she reaches up and drags him back down until they are nearly nose-to-nose. She keeps one hand between his shoulder blades, fingers digging into century-old scars as she uses the other one to guide him inside her.

It's nearly instantaneous, the moment he bottoms out. The oneness, the fit and the familiarity and the intimacy. It's that thing they've been searching for those six months. It's the elusive yearning given satisfaction and feels so, so _good_ that Emma starts laughing with pure joy as they begin to move together. Her husband chuckles with her and she just wants to chase that, that pure, solid feeling so she wraps her ankles around his back and pulls him in deeper, moves a hand down to grab his ass and rock into him, as far as he could possibly go.

(So they can never be parted again.)

It feels like it lasts forever, the joy of reunion after the damn curse, the time apart (and celibate) but Emma's sure they barely last minutes, the pleasure taking them off. This time it radiates through her body in soft waves, nipping at her consciousness gently so when she comes down with Killian pressed against her, there is nothing but peace.

His breath is slowing in her neck and Emma is still grinning, filled with a giddy sort of happiness after all that despair. "Fuck, I missed you."

She feels the vibration of his chuckle as he disentangles from her with a groan and lays his head on the pillow beside hers, making no move to clean up. "Glad to be of service, love."

She snorts but the oft-used nickname makes her reflective of the last time he was speaking about it. Emma turns to support her head on her elbows, crossing her arms as she watches the pulse in his neck slow. "I spoke to Alice today. Apparently you were the one who convinced her to try again with Robyn. Zelena is having a conniption, but I like Robyn. What did you say, exactly?

Her husband pretends to grumble under his breath but shifts so he's pressed nose-to-nose with her, opening both eyes to look at her this time. "That magic can go fuck itself. There is nowhere else I'd rather be than with you."

"I love you Killian." His eyes were drooping at that point, and he merely pressed a gentle kiss to her head and scooped her closer. "I know lass, now sleep so I can woo you again in the morning."

So there are easy days and there are hard days.

They do end up going abroad, taking the Jolly to sea for a full six months and visiting Alice and Robyn in Barcelona as frequently as they can while they do it.

There are storms they weather and long, luxurious sunsets where they make love.

They return and understand, quietly, that their second child is about to embark on her own journey soon.

So they hold on to their love, hand in hand, and walk towards a new story, together.

They never look back.


End file.
